About The Author

Rachele Alpine

Rachele Alpine is a lover of sushi, fake mustaches, and Michael Jackson. One of her first jobs was at a library, but it didn’t last long, because all she did was hide in the third-floor stacks and read. Now she’s a little more careful about when and where she indulges her reading habit. By day she’s a high school English teacher, and by night she writes with the companionship of the world’s cutest dog, Radley, a big cup of coffee, and a full bag of gummy peaches. Rachele lives with her husband in Cleveland, Ohio, but dreams of moving back to Boston, the city she fell in love with while attending graduate school there.

The Inspiration for Canary

by Rachele Alpine

CANARY grew from a project I did in college. It was for an education class, and we had to research a topic that high school students may face. I chose sexual assault. However, instead of presenting our information in a traditional research paper, we wrote multi-genre papers. These consisted of sharing our information through a mixture of poems, stories, and artwork. One of the poems I wrote really spoke to me, and I kept going back to it every once in awhile.

Fast-forward to a few years later, and I became very aware of how our culture was athlete obsessed. Some major controversies involving both professional and college athletes were all over the news, and it got me thinking about the special privileges that athletes got. I began to think about this type of athlete worship in high school and what might happen if it went too far. The poem I had written in college still stuck with me, and I started to create a story around the piece and our celebrity-like treatment of athletes. CANARY was born out of these two ideas and the poem that first sparked everything is included in the book.

About The Book

Canary

by Rachele Alpine

Staying quiet will destroy her, but speaking up will destroy everyone.

Kate Franklin’s life changes for the better when her dad lands a job at Beacon Prep, an elite private school with one of the best basketball teams in the state. She begins to date a player on the team and quickly gets caught up in a world of idolatry and entitlement, learning that there are perks to being an athlete.

But those perks also come with a price. Another player takes his power too far and Kate is assaulted at a party. Although she knows she should speak out, her dad’s vehemently against it and so, like a canary sent into a mine to test toxicity levels and protect miners, Kate alone breathes the poisonous secrets to protect her dad and the team. The world that Kate was once welcomed into is now her worst enemy, and she must decide whether to stay silent or expose the corruption, destroying her father’s career and bringing down a town’s heroes.